Students and guests were welcomed into the warmth of the café at 43 Lancaster Gate for our first CARP Talk. (05/10/2016)

MC, Amy

Guests were able to hear an in-depth pitch about CARP UK, its purpose (which is based on The Divine Principle), who the committee members are, join in reading our mission statement and the core CARP principles; lead by MC for the night, Amy Brown.

Reflecting Amy’s bubbly personality, we played a few interesting ice-breaking games. Amy then gave us an introduction to the CARP Talk: ‘How to See the Bigger Picture’, given by Beni Vitai.

CARP Crowd

The first game was more like an icebreaker; where everyone was able to learn three new facts about each other. The second, could appropriately be called ‘Where Children Sleep’. This game was designed around the photography of James Mollison. In groups, guests were given mismatched pictures of children from different places around the world and their bedrooms. The mission for the guests? To place the picture of the child with their actual bedroom. It was interesting to see the differences in people’s perspective of which environment they thought each child came from.

With the intros and games completed, a warm round of applause was given for the start of Beni’s CARP Talk.

Child’s bedroom match-up game

Beni had recently returned to London after spending one month in Los Angeles, where he experienced and learned a new outreach style on campus, working with CARP LA. Beni focused his talk on sharing his personal experiences with us, in a deep and heartfelt manner. Through his LA experience he was able to understand and see the ‘bigger picture’ about himself and his life with his family.

Beni, our speaker, giving the talk

Beni showed through his talk how we can apply the positive and helpful things we learn from those we look up to, as he did whilst in LA.

With a journey on a highway in California and with a song, he was able to come to the realisation that it is his life, and it doesn’t belong to anyone else – giving the strong impression that, this realisation strengthened him. We had the chance to listen to the song that inspired Beni. He encouraged us to take time to think and reflect, in order to see what we love in a person, to try to see from their perspective, and be able to say “I love you and forgive you”.

To end the night, we satisfied our hungry tummies with the perfect food for a chilly Autumn night, pizza.